Kyle Katarn

Kyle Katarn is a Rebel operative from Sulon and later a Jedi of the New Jedi Order. He was a former Imperial officer who defected to the Rebellion. Often paired with fellow Rebel agent and smuggler Jan Ors, he performed many covert missions for the Rebel Alliance and later the New Republic, including the sabotage of the Dark Trooper Project.

Katarn was later informed of his Force sensitivity, and taught himself to become a Jedi while in search of the Valley of the Jedi. During this journey, he confronted the dark side within both himself and in the form of the Dark JediJerec and his minions.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Kyle was the son of Morgan and Patricia Katarn, farmers from the Sullust colony moon of Sulon. Growing up on the farm, Katarn had found a brother of sorts in his father's custom-made labor droid, WeeGee. As a result, Katarn became one of the few humans in the galaxy fluent in the electronic language of droidspeak.

After learning about his mother's death at the claw of a malfunctioning BT-16 perimeter security droid, Katarn enrolled at the Imperial Academy on Carida. Living out on the rim, he had few other opportunities to obtain an education. During a raid on a Rebel asteroid base, Katarn began to suspect his Force potential, a trait passed to him by his father, when he experienced several premonitions that saved the lives of many of his strike team members. While on the mission, Katarn also met Jan Ors, an agent working for the Rebellion. Katarn and Ors were on opposite sides of the war, but they experienced a strange connection that led Katarn to spare her life as well as the lives of many of the station's inhabitants. As a result of the success of his mission, Katarn became a decorated Imperial stormtrooper officer, but his father, unbeknownst to him, was a supporter of the Rebel Alliance.

Following this last mission, which was his Omega Exercise, Katarn learned that his father had been killed in a suspected Rebel raid on his homeworld of Sulon. Katarn, recalling the lives he spared on the asteroid base, became extremely hateful towards the Rebellion, believing them to be murderers.

Defection

Putting aside his grief for the time, Katarn took a pleasure cruise on the Star of Empire, his last bit of freedom before officially becoming an officer in the Imperial navy. It was while on this ship that he met Lando Calrissian, and ran into Jan Ors for the second time. After a brief chase and a brawl with some of Ors's fellow agents, Katarn's attention was grabbed when Ors dropped the name Sulon. Ors showed Katarn footage from the battle there that had been obtained by a reporter and her loyal droid. She explained to him that it was in fact the Imperials who had staged the attack. They had painted Rebel insignias on their ships to make it seem as if the Rebels had been the aggressors. Their use of standard Imperial tactics, which Katarn had studied extensively at the Imperial Academy, gave them away.

After seeing the footage for himself, Katarn became distrustful towards the Empire and defected, becoming a neutral mercenary. He left the Star of Empire with Ors and her fellow agents aboard their ship after a brief scuffle with some Imperials and a bounty hunter that worked for them. During this incident, the droid with the recordings of the battle on Sulon was captured and self-destructed, allowing Katarn and the others to make a clean escape. Ors took Katarn back to her base and introduced him to Mon Mothma, the leader of the Alliance, and he became a Rebel spy.
Soon after his recruitment into the Alliance, Katarn was responsible for introducing the Twi'lek Rianna Saren to the organization. He first tasked her with infiltrating a Black Sun warehouse on Coruscant to discover how they were involved with the Empire. After Saren successfully completed this mission, Katarn revealed to her that he was a Rebel agent and introduced her to Leia Organa.

Katarn's first mission for the Alliance was the infiltration of an Imperial facility on Danuta to retrieve the plans for the first Death Star as a part of Operation Skyhook. While viewing the briefing information, he recognized his friend from the Academy, Meck Odom, as one of the officers in charge of guarding the plans. Katarn met with Odom secretly, and he gave Katarn information that assisted him in completing his mission. He also deactivated the perimeter, allowing Katarn entry into the base. The partial plans stolen by Katarn were eventually combined with those captured at Toprawa, on the Death Star itself, and by Rianna Saren and Z-58-0Z after their battle against Imperial slave master Zarian Kheev on Danuta, to create a complete outline of the station.

Fighting the dark troopers

Template:Quote
Soon after the Battle of Yavin, Mon Mothma asked Katarn to investigate the destruction of Tak Base resulting from the attack on Tak Base. Katarn accepted, and, upon request, took on Jan Ors as his mission officer. Katarn's investigation revealed the Imperial Dark Trooper project, led by Clone Wars veteran General Rom Mohc. Several clues led Katarn to Anoat, where he captured Moff Rebus, an infamous Imperial weapons engineer. After raiding a testing facility for phrik on the planet Fest, Katarn was led to the Gromas system, where the mineral was being mined and the first stage of the Dark Trooper was manufactured. After destroying the facility, Katarn had to rescue Crix Madine from an Imperial detention center on Orinackra and traveled to the Ramsees Hed docking port on Cal-Seti. There, he was able to track a smuggling ship that was making runs to the frozen planet of Anteevy, where the second stage of Dark Trooper construction was being completed. Katarn destroyed the facility on Anteevy and was led to Nar Shaddaa, where he located a Nava card describing the activities of all the smugglers involved in the Dark Trooper project. Upon leaving the planet, though, Katarn and Ors were briefly captured by Jabba the Hutt

After defeating several kell dragons barehanded,[1] Katarn was able to regain the card, rescue Ors, and escape Jabba's space cruiser. Katarn and Ors infiltrated the ISO building on Coruscant, where he was able to decode the nav card. He also fought and defeated Boba Fett. Using the new information from the card, Katarn and Ors tracked one of the smuggler ships to the Refueling Station Ergo. Katarn hijacked this ship and used it to sneak onto the Executor, which was the only ship with the information regarding the location of the Arc Hammer which was where the third and final stage of the Dark Trooper was being manufactured. Once on board, he stowed away on a cargo transport en route to the Arc Hammer. After an intense shootout against a Phase III Dark Trooper clad General Mohc, Katarn proceeded to blow up the Arc Hammer and escape, destroying the Dark Trooper Project for good. In gratitude for his bravery, Mon Mothma awarded him the Star of Alderaan.